Ivan Illich

Choose Your Conspiracy Carefully

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

Choose Your Conspiracy Carefully

The people in the U.S. are navigating through the choppy waters. I think of this as the gulf of conspiracy. Less than a month ago, my visit to the dentist demonstrated this. Prior to entry, much care was taken — “Call before entering when you arrive. Let us know if you have a fever or other symptoms? You must wear a mask.” Good. A place of care. Once inside, however I found another contagion. A pandemic of conspiracy, spread by a friendly staff member. As we talked, she opined that “COVID-19 deaths are exaggerated so that doctors and hospitals can make more money.” Okay, I thought — that’s a new one — a pretty sad and inaccurate one — given the risks being taken by medical staff and the financial distress many healthcare systems face in this dramatically changed economic reality.

Sidewalk art, Indiana University campus, 2020

However, that wasn’t the first touch with conspiracy that morning. A phone call earlier from a friend began, “Don’t you think Donald Trump is pretending to have the corona virus and doing this for political purposes?” “No,” I responded, “How would this be helpful?”

Our nation seems to be swimming in a sea of conspiracies. Today there is the claim of “widespread voter fraud” by President Trump and his most loyal supporters. There is no evidence. Election officials, including Republicans, deny this in states where such “fraud” is claimed to have occurred. This conspiracy joins ranks of others in 2020 like the anti-vaxxers who oppose all vaccines, the belief that Vladimir Putin has compromising information on Donald Trump and the idea that COVID-19 was deliberately produced in a Chinese lab.

I hear multiple conspiracies each day. Some are minor and some perhaps carry a small grain of truth. Ever hear of Area 51 in Nevada or the various theories behind the assassination of President Kennedy, or that Neil Armstrong didn’t really walk on the moon? Other conspiracies offer more existential and long-term danger: like those labeling all media as “Fake News” so as to undermine all news sources, or the claim that climate change is a hoax even as our natural environment may be irreparably damaged, or the astonishing QAnon assertions that Tom Hanks joins the Democrats in cannibalism and child sex-trafficking.

Alaskan Highway

Presidential elections are fertile ground for new conspiracies. Those who start political conspiracies behaved like rabbits this year, breeding and releasing multiple distortions and threats into our civic life. We need take great care in choosing which conspiracies shape our understandings. You say – “Hey, wait a minute there, fella, I don’t fall for conspiracies!” Sorry, I have some sad news to report. From many research quarters (universities and sophisticated research centers) comes the knowledge that everyone is prone to accepting ideas that bolster preconceived notions. Confirmation bias is alive and well. It is the notion that we choose the information that reinforces our beliefs and values.

Am I saying that we are stuck in our conspiracies? Well NO, and, sadly, potentially yes. Conspiracies do not an entire worldview make; however, our worldviews do make us more susceptible. Here is where the value of the intervening correctives come into play. Reason, research and faith-informed reflection are a critical trio for me. Other correctives are enshrined in our nation’s constitution and bill of rights. Still others are operational — things like continuing education, practicing critical thinking, reading widely, legal precedence and community engagement each can assist in holding our hubris and distortions in check.

For years I have felt something important is lost as religious congregations have become more and more monolithic in make-up theologically and culturally. Genuine and durable democracy and respect across ideological divisions was often bolstered in friendly disagreements across the table at the pitch-in dinner or visits after worship in the parking lot.

There is a sign along the Alaskan Highway that reads “Choose Your Rut Carefully. You’ll Be In It For The Next Sixty Miles.” I hate to admit it, but I am old enough to remember such signs as my family traveled across Missouri and Oklahoma back in the early 1950s. Of course, then it was only a few miles in the same rut. The conspiracies to which we may fall prey can turn into ruts that mislead and distract for years.

As I think of conspiracies and the rut I choose, I am am reminded of Ivan Illich, priest and social critic. Illich speaks of “conspiratio” and “comestio” as essential to faith and the civic life [See David Cayley’s conversations with Ilich in “The Rivers North of the Future,” Anansi Press, 2005].

Illich asserts that conspiratio is not a bunch of rebels trying to undermine or overthrow a political order. It is not the sowing of misinformation or deceit. It is more radical than this! It is about living by a new narrative. It is a changing of the “I” into a new “We.” It is the Gospel narrative set out in the parables of Jesus. Stories of Good Samaritan, the Importuning Widow, the Ten Bridesmaids, and on and on and on the parables go. There are stories of those celebrating the finding of that which was lost, and of the best wine served late and with abundance. There is a conversion of what is presumed to be a suspicious and limited existence toward a community of abundance and conviviality. It is the narrative of God’s grace and the joys of faith over against the dominant grim order. It is about that which was lost, being found. Conspiratio is “breathing together,” represented in the “kiss of peace” offered as believers come to celebrate the Eucharist. Comestio is the sharing of a common meal where all are welcome at the table.

I have not done justice to Illich here; still let me affirm that he points to the conspiracy into which I choose to live.

This morning as I walked my normal route contemplating how to end this reflection an incident occurred that surely comes as a sign for me of the conspiracy I choose. My walk took me through a neighborhood park named in memory of Dr. Ernest Butler, an African American pastor in Bloomington and friend of mine for many years.

Along the trail, between the playground and tennis courts, a man in his mid-forties approached. He motioned and asked if I could help. I nodded yes, not certain what he wanted. He said, “Have you seen a boy on the trail, sandy haired?” Raising his arm he gave indication of the young man’s height. “No,” I replied, “If I see him what do you want me to tell him?” The man choked back his words, wetness welling in his eyes, “Tell him, his father loves him. He should come home.”

I walked on. A half an hour or so later I saw the father and boy sitting together on a bridge, talking. May I live to see such conspiracies often.

Fortnight – Day2: Virtue

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

Fortnight – Day2: Virtue

October 21, has been designated Global Ethics Day by the Carnegie Council for International Affairs. It’s a good and timely thing to give attention to virtue as we approach the selection of leaders in our nation. In this fortnight we reflect on virtue or ethics. What is “the best” way forward? What values, principles, intentions should be reflected in our personal and corporate actions? Where do we see evidence of the good, the true and the beautiful?

Virtue is born of our deepest beliefs, values, attitudes and desires. It finds expression and shape in our habits, our learned behaviors as these are repeated over and again until they are taken-for-granted as the “right” way. In this second fortnight post, we focus on the care that needs to be given in challenging what some believe is to be normative. I would ask, where is the virtue of immigrant children who have been separated from parents? What is valued in the denial of climate change? Should wearing a mask be a political statement when others may face harm by a neglect? Can any ethical person, let alone a Christian person, ignore the value of the health and well-being of another?

Aren’t these critical questions for all persons of faith — who is my neighbor? — how shall I therefore live my life? Will deception or lie be seen as normal? Will perpetual shading or spinning of the truth, or “gas lighting” (offering false stories) become appropriate for our leaders?

Aristotle offered four virtues: prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. These have become known as the “cardinal virtues.” The church later added the three “theological virtues:” faith, hope and charity (from I Corinthians 13). These became “the seven virtues.” Others have said virtue is evidenced in that which is good, true and beautiful. Okay — nice overview — but how will we therefore live? And what is the test for these seven virtues or this this triad? How will we know the good, the true, the beautiful?

Few ethicists have shaped my thoughts more than Glen Stassen. He spoke of the guidance offered in the Sermon on the Mount where over and again Jesus points to the fruit borne in lives well-lived. In his work Living the Sermon on the Mount he writes: “I am suggesting that even though we do not know all there is to know, and we do not have the certitude of a universal viewpoint, we can see within our own history what kind of ethic comes through, which is truer because of the fruits it bears.” The theme throughout the Sermon on the Mount is “doing,” “producing,” “acting.” Here is joy and deliverance from deceit. (See Living the Sermon on the Mount, pp. 192-199).

Ivan Illich spoke of virtue as the “habitual facility of doing the good thing.” With a sharp and critical eye on our institutions (schools, hospitals, church and our politics), Illich notes a failure to accomplish primary stated purposes. Other values, he suggests, are given preferred over that which is truly the good. The love of neighbor is somewhere lost in the maze of social interaction. Some are excluded. “No category, neither law or custom, language or culture can define in advance who the neighbor might be.” (see David Cayley’s The Rivers North of the Future, p. 30). Illich often points to the parable in Luke’s Gospel spoken of as “The Good Samaritan.” It is the “expert in the law” who says he has kept all the customs and rules who challenges with “And who is my neighbor?” There is a rupturing of traditional categories in the answer Jesus gives. There is a call to conversion, to change.

Theologian Nancy Bedford calls on Christians “To Speak of God from More than One Place.” When leaders are reluctant to speak against White Supremacy or suggest that other nation’s and peoples are to be disrespected, there is an effort to link God’s purposes to my small, small world of my self interest… to my unwillingness to share. There is a signpost along a country road not far from my home. I chuckle each time I pass. It simply reads “Entering-Leaving Gatesville.” A single sign, same message, front and back, all on one post. For many, the reach of virtue, of ethical concern, begins and ends in one place.

The folks of Gatesville are lovely people I suspect. They clearly have a good sense of humor an perspective. This is important. Sadly, when awareness and care for the neighbor is lost, when our beginning and ending is at the edge of our own skin and ego, then we lose an ability to know the gifts we are offered in community, in diversity, in journeying to new understandings.

When thinking about practical virtues of in daily life, I am also helped by folks like Shirley Duncanson, a retired United Methodist pastor in Minnesota. Her posts in “A Pastor’s Heart: Thoughts on Life and Faith” offer clear and practical assistance. Writing on “Recovering Christian Ethics in an Age of COVID-19,” Rev. Duncanson offers cites the work of Barbara Brown Taylor’s pastoral experience in wise counsel: “The only way out of a pandemic is by all of us working together . . . Each of us doing our part . . . Each of us caring for people around us . . . Each of us using the means available to us to protect one another . . . Each of us holding tight, (in our hearts) to one another . . . And all the while, making sure that no one, but no one, is left behind.” (see: https://shirleyhobsonduncanson.com/tag/barbara-brown-taylor/).

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“Love does no wrong to it’s neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” Romans 13:10.

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Poem by Linda Ori, 2004

The Time of Truth

The time is now
Let change begin,
Blend heaven and earth
In an endless spin,
Wherever you're going,
Wherever you've been
Now change your direction
And travel within;

The time is now
To take a good look
Examine your life
And the roads that you took,
From cover to cover
You've written your book
Did you swim in the river
Or sleep by the brook?

The time is now
Get your head on straight
No more indecision
To love or to hate,
Since you are the author
Don't blame it on Fate,
Take control of your future
Before it's too late.

The Unexpected Neighbor

~ philipamerson

The Unexpected Neighbor

The remarkable social philosopher and Catholic priest Ivan Illich was once asked, “Given what you suggest about institutions, what is the best way to make change, violent revolution or gradual reform?” Illich answered, “Neither, the best way to bring change is to give an alternative story.” (in David Cayley’s, The Rivers North of the Future).

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Ivan Illich, 1971, source: Wikipedia

Illich, was an iconoclast, a Christian visionary, a prolific writer — and widely read in the last decades of the Twentieth Century.  His brilliant critiques of our institutional practices, still provide a clear-eyed challenge and much valuable reforming wisdom, about our easy customs, traditions and ideologies.  Schools, hospitals, courts, governments and churches were all subjects of his analysis. 

He was more!  Each critique was not a call to anarchy, nor was it an invitation to some elaborate new strategy whereby those in power can better serve their “clients.”  He was about something much more basic — as basic as a table where all may share. 

His call is to reinvest in the original motivating principles behind our “helping” institutions.  He was about the nurturing of an underlying community spirit built on the essential importance of neighborliness.  He suggests there are ways of living into such community understandings as evidenced in his book Tools for Conviviality.

Illich spoke of “corruptio optimi pessima” or “the corruption of the best becoming the worst.” He writes, “Through the attempt to ensure, to guarantee, to regulate Revelation, the best becomes the worst.  And yet at any moment we still have opportunities to recognize, even when we are Palestinians, that there is a Jew lying in the ditch whom I can take in my arms and embrace.”  (David Cayley, Ivan Illich in Conversation, Toronto: Anansi Press, p. 242.)

As Illich would put it, there is a “sad historical progression in which God’s incarnation is turned topsy-turvy, inside out” (from David Cayley’s Rivers North of the Future, p. 29).  This corruption may be seen in our many efforts to serve, to control, to regulate, to manage and to turn our neighbors into categories or objects of our good intentions.  A simple illustration he gives is as follows: “In the early years of Christianity it was customary in a Christian household to have an extra mattress, a bit of candle and some dry bread in case the Lord Jesus, should knock at the door in the form of a stranger without a roof” (Cayley, Rivers North of the Future, p. 54.).  Over the centuries, hospitality was “improved upon.”  The work of each householder is transformed into the responsibility of our “serving institutions.”

If there is one alternative story which Ivan Illich cites more than others, it would, no doubt, be the one known as “the Good Samaritan Parable” in Luke 10. 

I have spent much of my adult life sifting through the human wisdom nuggets of truth in this story — AND BEING CONVERTED BY THIS WITNESS.  It is astonishing that in these few verses in Luke’s gospel, there are dozens upon dozens of insights into our institutions, our freedom, the incarnation story and the wider human reality — tragic and blessed.  I have written about this in other places — and will, no doubt, write more in the future about this upside down reality, this conspiracy, which is the core of Christianity (and that of many other great religious traditions).  Instead in this piece, I want to begin to share a few other alternative stories.  Today, there is the story from Wes Jackson, environmentalist and founder of The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas.

Alternative Story #1:

Wes Jackson shares a story of a visit E.F. Schumacher, author of the widely known work Small is Beautiful, made to his fledgling organization in Kansas in 1977.  Jackson says The Land Institute was “scarcely six months old and we were honored that Schumacher, the widely acclaimed author would visit and give a public lecture.”

“When Schumacher arrived, he did not dismiss this tiny organization that had recently experienced a devastating fire, destroying much of their early work. Instead, E. F. Schumacher listened patiently and insisted on being called ‘Fritz.’ On the evening of the lecture, the Salina Community Theater was filled with farmers, small business owners and the unemployed.”

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Wes Jackson, from Cool Science News, 2009

Fritz began by telling of a trip he had made during the 1930s with some friends in an automobile across America. He and his compatriots had stopped at a service station in some small Kansas town at the height of the Great Depression. Fritz engaged a local man at the station by asking, “How are things?” “Fine,” the local replied. “What is it you do?” asked Fritz. “Oh, I work on that farm over there,” he said pointing in the direction of the farm. “I used to own that farm but I had no money to pay the hired hand, so I paid him in land.  Eventually he owned all of my farm and now I work for him.”

“That is a very sad story,” replied Fritz.” “Well, not so sad,” countered the hired hand. “You see, now my friend has no money either and so he is paying me back in land.” (Jackson, Wes, The Land Institute, December 1999, see info@landinstitute.org).

What are your thoughts about such alternative narratives?  Let’s have a conversation.  Let’s keep listening for other stories that conspire to teach new lessons than might transform our view of the world — and perhaps even change the way we see ourselves.

 

 

My One Question

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

My One Question

What would you ask?  If you could ask only one question of the candidates for the presidency of the United States what would it be? 

Tonight we will see the spectacle of the first presidential debates among the candidates of the Republican Party.  Several television and newspaper pundits are suggesting the questions that “must be asked by” the moderator.  For example, Tom Friedman suggests candidates be asked about an increase in the gasoline tax to pay for our crumbling highway infrastructure.  He notes this is something that Ronald Reagan supported upon his election and might help determine which candidates would be able to lead beyond narrow ideological constraints.  (See: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/thomas-friedman-my-question-for-the-republican-presidential-debate.html?src=me&_r=0).  Friedman also suggests questions on immigration and carbon tax credits.  Good questions — just not my question.

There is another group called Circle of Protection that would ask the candidates what they would do to end hunger and poverty in our nation.  Several of the candidates, in both parties, have posted video responses to this excellent question (see: circleofprotection.us).  This too is a marvelous question — a truly important question.  The video responses by candidates that have already been made are helpful — revealing of core beliefs.

However, most of the questions suggested by the pundits are designed to elicit a provocative response, something that will pit one candidate against another.  Most of the suggested questions have little to do with policy or vision and much to do with demeaning another candidate.  Clearly, the hope is to start a political food fight!   Most of the suggested quarries by the television talking-heads are designed to generate more heat than light.  These suggestions are a version of the old school yard taunt “Lets you and him fight!”  How interesting that on August 6th, Hiroshima Day, our nation’s attention turns to a forum where many are hoping to see a fight.

My one question would be this: WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR? 

It comes from my enduring preoccupation with the Gospel parable we often refer to as the story of the Good Samaritan.  I prefer to call it the Parable of the Unexpected Neighbor.  My preoccupation with this particular parable is shaped by the reading of the social philosopher Ivan Illich.  Illich returns to this story again and again as a theme in his analysis of modern institutions.  He notes our misguided efforts to provide professional solutions to problems that require, first and foremost, a neighborly community and a commitment to common conviviality.

Huntington Library Gardens
Huntington Library Gardens, Image of St. Francis

I believe the story of the Good Samaritan has been domesticated, romanticized and distorted in meaning.  I hold that in answering the question “Who is my neighbor?” one will hear from the respondent the core commitments of that person.  This is a “template narrative.”  It uncovers a human gestalt — points to the baseline of meaning. The answer to this question has shaped the lives of people throughout the ages, from St. Francis to Mother Teresa, from Ghandi to Thomas Merton.

Who is my neighbor?  The answer suggests so much — from a compassion for the stranger, to an openness to the foreigner, and a welcoming of the alien, alternative solutions to vexing problems.  It is a question that allows the responder to share ideas that might give us larger purpose and expanded hope.  Yes, the theme of care for the neighbor challenges our propensity to selfishness, bigotry and violence; I believe it offers us even more, when we grasp the dimensions of how this story and its context might shape our perspectives today.

Ivan Illich was once asked, “Given what you suggest about institutions, what is the best way to make change, violent revolution or gradual reform?” Illich answered, “Neither, the best way to bring change is to give an alternative story.” (in David Cayley’s, The Rivers North of the Future).

Over the next several postings I will expand on the wonder of this parable and the power of the question asked of Jesus by the young man in Luke 10:25-37.  I believe it opens us to a remarkably powerful, alternative story — maybe the most powerful alternative story available to humanity!

My plans this evening do not include watching “the debate.”  There will be plenty more where these came from.  I wonder what questions will be asked.  Were I given just one question, it would be — WHO?  WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?